Royal Dutch Shell and Gazprom Neft have agreed to create a joint venture that will be exploring and developing oil fields in the Yamal region in Russia, the oil arm of Russian gas giant Gazprom said on Thursday. Shell and Gazprom Neft have signed the documents to create a 50/50 joint venture that will be managed on an equal basis by the partners in a rare move of an international oil major into Russia’s oil sector, some of which has been subject to Western sanctions since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. The joint venture deal is expected to be finalized in late 2019 or early next year, pending all necessary corporate and regulatory approvals and once all legal preconditions have been met, Gazprom Neft said in a statement. “As part of this new agreement we will be able to reveal the full potential of what is a […]